There’s an entire pile of October books. You’ll want to check out some of these, I’m sure.

Should we kick off the list with a holiday letter? Try Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners by Gretchen Anthony. “Dearest loved ones, far and near – evergreen tidings from the Baumgartners!” That’s how Violet Baumgartner has opened her annual holiday letter for the last thirty years. This year, she’s planning her husband’s perfect retirement party. But, in front of two hundred guests, Violet learns her daughter, Cerise, has been keeping a shocking secret. That event leads to a very un-Midwestern, un-Baumgartner gyre of dramatics. This is the story of a family falling to pieces – and the unexpected way they put it all back together. (Release date is Oct. 16.)

Hiro Arikawa’s The Traveling Cat Chronicles is already an international bestseller. It’s translated by Philip Gabriel. “With simple yet descriptive prose, the novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner, Satoru, as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru’s longtime friends. Or so Nana is led to believe.” (Release date is Oct. 23.)

Some months, one book stands out. You’ll want to watch for Lou Berney’s November Road. It’s set against the background of JFK’s assassination, and centers on a desperate chase across 1960s America. Frank Guidry has always been a loyal lieutenant to New Orleans’ mob boss Carlos Marcello, but it’s his turn to be expendable. He knows too much about the crime of the century, the assassination of JFK. And, everyone who connect Marcello to that event is dead within two weeks. Guidry takes off across country, and he shouldn’t stop. But, he stops to help a woman, her daughters and a dog, another person on the run. And, fugitives shouldn’t fall in love. (Release date is Oct. 9.)

Check out Sharon Bolton’s The Craftsman. Thirty years ago, Florence Lovelady’s career was made when she convicted coffin maker Larry Glassbrook of a series of child murders. Like something from our worst nightmares, the victims were buried alive. Fast-forward to present day. Glassbrook is dead but his grisly crimes are resurfacing. Did Florence put the wrong man behind bars? Or is there something much darker at play? (Release date is Oct. 16.)

Steven Cooper’s Dig Your Grave is the second mystery featuring Phoenix police detective Alex Mills and his friend, psychic Gus Parker. A killer is burying his victims among the dead in Phoenix cemeteries after making them dig their own grave. And, the victims seem to be powerful men. Why would one killer target these men who seem to go missing at the same spot in Phoenix? (Release date is Oct. 16.)

There’s always humor in E.J. Copperman’s mysteries. Bird, Bath, and Beyond is the second Agent to the Paws mystery. When TV star Dray Mattone is killed in his trailer on set, Kay Powell has a hard time convincing the police that her client, a parrot named Barney, can’t tell them who killed him. But, the parrot is the only known witness. In order to protect Barney, Kay may have to track the killer herself. (Release date is Oct. 9.)

Bright Young Dead is Jessica Fellowes’ second Mitford Murders Mystery. The Bright Young Things are rabble-rousing hedonists of the 1920s. One of their games ends in tragedy at Pamela Mitford’s 18th birthday party, when a man is pushed to his death from the bell tower of the neighboring church. The police identify the killer as a maid, Dulcie, a member of a notorious gang of female thieves. But the Mitford girls’ chaperone believes Dulcie is innocent, and sets out to clear the girl’s name. (Release date is Oct. 30.)

Therese Anne Fowler’s A Well-Behaved Woman is “A Novel of the Vanderbilts”. “Alva Smith, her Southern family destitute after the Civil War, married into one of America’s great Gilded Age dynasties: the newly wealthy but socially shunned Vanderbilts. Ignored by New York’s old-money circles and determined to win respect, she designed and built nine mansions, hosted grand balls, and arranged for her daughter to marry a duke. But Alva also defied convention for women of her time, asserting power within her marriage and becoming a leader in the women’s suffrage movement.” (Release date is Oct. 16.)

In Bradley Harper’s A Knife in the Fog, a young Doctor Arthur Conan Doyle is invited to assist the Metropolitan Police as a “consultant” in the search for a serial killer who becomes known as Jack the Ripper. He agrees, as long as his mentor, Professor Joseph Bell will assist. But, the third member of their trio, hired as their guide, is a reporter and writer, Miss Margaret Harkness. It’s an intriguing case that combines history and fiction. (Release date is Oct. 2.)

With The Darkness, Ragnar Jonasson launches a new series featuring a new sleuth, Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdottir of the Reykjavik Police Department. When a young woman, an asylum seeker from Russia, is found murdered on the seaweed covered rocks of Iceland, Hulda starts to ask questions. But it isn’t long before she realizes no one wants her to investigate this murder. She eventually must decide whether solving this case is worth losing her life. (Release date is Oct. 16.)

George Sueno and Ernie Bascom return for Martin Limon’s thirteenth novel featuring the pair, The Line. A Battered corpse is found a few feet north of the Korean Demilitarized Zone line. When the two 8th Army CID Agents pull the body to the South Korean side on orders from their superiors, they have no idea of the international conflict that small action will spark. Before war breaks out, they must discover who killed the young Korean soldier working the with US Army. Because they fear they put the wrong man behind bars, they disobey orders to discover the truth. (Release date is Oct. 23.)

How about an atmospheric historical mystery? Laurie Loewenstein’s Death of a Rainmaker is a Dust Bowl Mystery, set in Oklahoma in the 1930s. When a rainmaker is killed during a dust storm, Sheriff Temple Jennings investigates. But, his arrest doesn’t sit right with his wife, who finds the suspect reminds her of their dead son, and she’s determined to find the real killer. This is a vividly described, fascinating story. (Release date is Oct. 9.)

Kerri Maher’s novel, The Kennedy Debutante, follows the exploits of Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, the forgotten and rebellious daughter of one of America’s greatest political dynasties. In London, 1938, Kick Kennedy was the “It girl” of London since her father was named the ambassador. Kick was eager to escape the family, and she strikes out on her own, and is soon swept off her feet by Billy Hartington, the future Duke of Devonshire. But with Kick’s devout Catholic family and Billy’s staunchly Protestant one, the families would never approve their match. They’re separated when war breaks out, but Kick gets work as a journalist and joins the Red Cross to get back to England. (Release date is Oct. 2.)

Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone has his hands full in Antonio Manzini’s Out of Season. The daughter of the owners of a local construction firm is kidnapped, targeted because of her parents’ debt. But the kidnappers’ van skids, killing the pair. The girl is in the back, gagged, bound, and unable to get free. And, Rocco has trouble at home, after a steamy evening with his girlfriend’s best friend. Then, there’s an escaped prisoner who intends to avenge his brother’s death at Rocco’s hand. (Release date is Oct. 2.)

Retired Police Chief Kevin Kerney returns in Michael McGarrity’s Residue. This time, he’s the prime suspect in a brutal cold-case murder. A long-unsolved mystery gets a grim new break when the bones of Kim Ward are unearthed in Las Cruces, New Mexico, forty-five years after her disappearance. Suspicion swiftly falls on her old college boyfriend, Kevin Kerney. And, there’s damning evidence compiled against him by State Police Lieutenant Clayton Istee, Kerney’s son. With no alibi and not a single witness, Kerney and his wife must race to reconstruct long-past events to expose the killer. (Release date is Oct. 16.)

Go to My Grave is Catriona McPherson’s latest standalone that “reads like Agatha Christie’s take on a Gothic thriller”. Donna Weaver put everything into restoring The Breakers, an old bed and breakfast on a remote stretch of beach in Galloway. The first guests to arrive are a contentious group of cousins who realize they’ve been here before, years ago. Decades have passed, but the birthday party that ended with a girl walking into the sea ended in a vow of silence between the cousins. But, someone has broken the pact, and they’re playing games that will end with at least one of them in the grave. (Release date is Oct. 23.)

Jodi Picoult’s A Spark of Light is about ordinary lives that intersect during a heart-stopping crisis. It’s a fall day like any other at a women’s reproductive health services clinic. Then a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking hostages. Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, rushes to the scene. That’s where he learns his fifteen-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside. The story traces what brought each of the different individuals to the same place on that fateful day. (Release date is Oct. 2.)

There are no Christmas mysteries with better covers than David Rosenfelt’s Andy Carpenter ones. Look at those puppies on Deck the Hounds. Reluctant lawyer Andy Carpenter doesn’t usually stop to help others, but when he sees a dog next to a homeless man, he gives them some money to help. But, things don’t end there. When the man and dog are attacked in the middle of the night, the dog defends its owner, and the attacker is bitten but escapes. Now, the dog is quarantined and the man, Don Carrigan, is heartbroken. Andy’s wife, Laurie, can’t resist helping the duo. It is the Christmas season. But, when Andy accidentally gives away his guest’s name during an interview, it turns out the man is wanted for a murder two years earlier. But, Don claims he had no idea he was wanted for a crime he doesn’t know about. Now, Andy wants to exonerate his new friend. (Release date is Oct. 16.)

Virgil Flowers is back in John Sandford’s Holy Ghost. In the small Minnesota town of Wheatfield, the mayor and his teenage buddy come up with a scheme to put the town on the map. What if the Virgin Mary appears at the local Catholic church? The town becomes a shrine; tourists arrive; and they need places to stay and food to eat. What could go wrong? What if a sniper is shooting people who are close to the church? When Virgil comes to town, he finds out what else could go wrong. (Release date is Oct. 9.)

Josie Silver’s One Day in December is about what happens when one meets – or doesn’t meet- the one. Laurie doesn’t believe in love at first sight, until one snowy day outside the windows of her bus she sees a man she instantly knows is the one…and then her bus drives away. She’s sure they’re meant to find each other, and she spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London. But, she doesn’t find him until a Christmas party where her best friend introduces her to her new boyfriend, Jack – the man from the bus. The following ten years for Laurie, Sarah, and Jack are years of friendship, heartbreak, roads not taken, and destinies reconsidered. (Release date is Oct. 16.)

The start of a war means the end of a dynasty in Natasha Solomons’ House of Gold. Great Goldbaum has always dreamed of being free to choose her own life’s path, but the Goldbaum family are bankers,  the wealthiest in the world. And, their path is ordained. Goldbaum women marry Goldbaum men to produce Goldbaum children. Greta moves to England to marry Albert, a distant cousin. By the time the couple are finally tasting happiness together, war is looming. It’s 1911, and for the first time in two hundred years, the family will find themselves on opposing sides and Greta will have to choose. (Release date is Oct. 23.)

Sherry Thomas, author of A Conspiracy in Belgravia, brings back “Lady Sherlock”, Charlotte Holmes, in The Hollow of Fear. Charlotte walks a dangerous path when the estranged wife of her dear friend Lord Ingram is discovered dead on his estate. All signs point to him as the killer, and the officer in charge is quite eager to pin the death on him. Charlotte disguises herself in order to find the truth. (Release date is Oct. 2.)

Then, there are all these books with October release dates.

Angela, Mary – A Very Merry Murder (Oct. 1)
Beaton, M.C. – The Dead Ringer (Oct. 2)
Carlston, David – Let These Bones Live Again (Oct. 1)
Gabriele, Lisa – The Winters (Oct. 16)
Gerald, Casey – There Will Be No Miracles Here (Oct. 2)
Haines, Carolyn – A Gift of Bones (Oct. 16)
James, Vic – Bright Ruin (Oct. 9)
Lindqvist, John Ajvide – I Am Behind You (Oct. 16)
Osborn, John Jay – Listen to the Marriage (Oct. 23)